Youth Programs
PURPOSE STATEMENT
Through arts-based youth programs, WonderRoot seeks to equip young people to develop skills, discover talents and explore passions. We believe that by providing access and building community the arts transform youths’ lives. By connecting exposure and purpose, WonderRoot empowers youth to think critically and express their own curiosities. We are committed to cultivating a new generation of artists who are equally invested in both their creative and social practices.
ENGAGEMENT METHODS
WonderRoot uses the following delivery methods to provide arts-based youth programs:
WonderRoot works in collaboration with Atlanta youth organizations for both in-reach and outreach arts programming. We can partner with existing programs to provide arts enhancement that reinforce existing goals and outcomes. Or we can connect young people with skills-based arts instruction opportunities.
City Camp + PhotoKids
City Camp + PhotoKids: Mask Making and Painting with Light Photography
WonderRoot invited our neighbors, Wilderness Works at City Camp, to the WonderRoot Community Art Center for a fall mask making and Painting with Light photography project. Wilderness Works is a youth development agency serving homeless and disadvantaged children in DeKalb and Fulton counties, through year-round experiential education, recreation and outdoor adventure. Approximately 45 Elementary and Middle School aged students walked to WonderRoot from City Camp and gathered in the WonderRoot Community Garden. There, picnic tables were set up with mask making material including paper bags as the base, along with scissors and glue, glitter, feathers, puzzle pieces, ribbon, confetti, and other notions, to decorate their masks. The students were taken inside, in groups of 7 or less, into the basement to work with our PhotoKids instructor on a Painting with Light project. The students chose colorful scarves, ribbons, neckties, and various sizes of flashlights. Then in the dark, the students moved, danced, and performed with their colorful props to create light images in the air. Using an adjusted studio flash, shutter speed, and aperture on her digital camera, the instructor was able to capture the colors and light as they moved, as images resembling paint strokes, hence the name painting with light. The students were provided lunch, grilled in the garden by volunteers from Oxford College at Emory. After the activity, students took home their masks and the printed Painting with Light photos were presented to be displayed at City Camp.
WonderKids
Come and experience art with your child at WonderKids art class, a creative class for children ages 3-12. We explore and discover a variety of mediums in arts and crafts. WonderKids meets every 3rd Saturday of the month from 2-3pm. Parents are encouraged to participate as well. So bring the kiddies, and let’s make art!!!!! For more information email bianca@wonderroot.org.
Foreverfamily
WonderRoot is partnering with the organization Foreverfamily (http://foreverfam.org) to connect teaching artists to work with their after school arts integration program. Foreverfamily works to ensure that, no matter what the circumstances, all children have the opportunity to be surrounded by the love of family. They focus their efforts on children with an incarcerated parent or parents, and support them as they, their parents, caregivers and extended families work to remain a family.
Students from Foreverfamily visited WonderRoot for a tour of the center and poetry workshop with WonderRoot member artist, Reed Dorty, and the following week, 6 actors from Village Theater worked with the kids in an improv comedy workshop.
Upcoming dates include:
- March 20- Visual Arts (Focus on Pop Culture and Self-Awareness)
- March 27- Drama (Focus on communication and decision making skills)
- May 1 – Creative Movement (Focus on self-actualization)
- May 15- Culminating Activity- Individual/Group Presentations
Global Village School
On February 24th, WonderRoot invited the Global Village School – 30 refugee girls from Iraq, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Burundi, Central African Republic, Sudan, and Burma – for a day of art making! The Global Village School provides an enriched education to teenage girls whose formal education has been interrupted by war and refugee camp experiences.
Students participated in activities from doll making, sculptural book art, ceramics, music, bow making and photography, taught and led by WonderRoot .
[the luminosity effect] a workshop series
April is National Poetry Month and WonderRoot wants to kick it off right by presenting [the luminosity effect]: a free, 8-week spoken word workshop series. The workshop will take place every Saturday from April 6th – May 25th, from 3-5 PM, at the WonderRoot Community Art Center.
Registered students will actively participate in innovative writing and performance workshops led by the nationally touring performance poet Nicole Shantè White. The series aims to foster the personal development of middle and high school students (ages 13 – 18) through the facilitation of contemporary performance poetry workshops, the creation of a safe anti-oppression space, and the establishment of mentorship with the teaching artist and various visiting spoken word artists. Students will gain self-confidence building skills, participate in discussions about coexistence and personal agency, and learn about various literary and performance techniques. Participants will be encouraged to attend poetry slams, open mics, and literary events taking place in Atlanta.
Class size is limited so please register early (deadline: March 22)!: https://wonderr
Syllabus:
Lesson 1: Peculiar Personas
Lesson 2. Voice Capacities: Articulation, Inflection, and Volume
Lesson 3: Bodily Presence
Lesson 4: The Pain and Pleasure of Rewriting: Editing and Developing Drafts
Lesson 5: Poetic Letter Writing
Lesson 6: Transforming the Cliché into the Captivating
Lesson 7: From Page to Stage: Memorization Methods
Lesson 8: Poetic Integrity: Representing Self-Identities
Teaching Artist: NICOLE SHANTÈ WHITE is a silent cacophony. The quiet one your mama warned you about. She is a cluster of Midwest accents and Southern hospitality. The nationally touring spoken word artist additionally identifies as a contemporary dancer and choreographer, actress, and songwriter. At the age of 16 she discovered the importance of her voice through slam poetry and the mentorship of HBO Def Poet Dasha Kelly. Since then, stages in Milwaukee, WI; Chicago, IL; Washington, D.C.; and Atlanta, GA have been amazed by her invigorating performances. Her spoken word encompasses her experiences as an educated queer woman of color.
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